about his participation in operation frequent wind. the evacuation of americans and south vietnamese allies saigon. the national world war i museum and memorial provided this january 2020 video. >> i would like to introduce retired marine colonel colonel holden. he was a second lieutenant during his college graduation and proceeded directly to pensacola where he was trained as a marine pilot. he was designated a naval aviator in december 1968 and received further training in the at the marineer base in california. he was deployed to vietnam in april 1969 and on his second southeast asia tour he

participated in the saigon evacuation, flying the last 11 marines off the roof of the american embassy on the morning of april 30, 1979 which this evening we will hear more about. he is a graduate of the army war college in carlisle, pennsylvania. he later served as the marine corps chair on the faculty of the naval war college teaching national military strategy. he moved to kansas city in 1993 and was assigned as the commanding officer and later ps in 1996.m the cor please join me in welcoming colonel thomas holden to the stage. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. it is a pleasure to be here.

to talk to you tonight about some of my experiences and as i start i want first to say that i want to speak on behalf of of all of the marine pilots that were involved in operation evacuatedind when we the marines. 77 helicopters took to the air and accomplish that mission and we had great marine corps pilots making that happen. unfortunately, like a lot of operations, it did not go without a mishap. early in the frequent wind saigon evacuation, just before they started with the helicopter extraction, we lost two marines at guard post one. corporal mcmahon and lance corporal judd were both killed

instantly when a rocket hit their guard post. we also lost a ch 46 during the evening. i will talk a little bit more about that. lieutenant shea and captain i istoll were aboard that. we got the crew rescued. i would like to start a little bit about the history of that time. we had an election not long before. president nixon had vowed to end the war in vietnam and he was true to his word. he and dr. kissinger worked hard at doing that. in 1973, they signed a peace with honor type treaty, similar korea. we had in th the north would stay north, the south would stay south.

prisoners of war would come home. everything was supposed to stay like that. the north -- anytime a violation by the north vietnamese would mean a complete reversal. nixon said he would send the bombers back in and attack again. i think, quite honestly, they believed him. reports were that the north vietnamese were terrified of nixon and listened to every word he said. the problem was, when he resigned and left the white house, the north vietnamese immediately took action and launched an attack along the main quarters of south vietnam, coming south. to westpac in okinawa and i was assigned to a ch 46 squadron. however this works. i'm not getting it to make --.

it's not coming forward. i'm not real good with technology. [laughter] i had no indications that we would be going back to vietnam. we were very happy with doing our mission. there's a funny thing on the screen here. there you go. ok. thank you. 46 that you see there. we used it on the evacuation. we were happy campers. we were flying all over the pacific. this was taken in the philippines, heading out to a carrier and everything was going well for us. 4, i had been gone for a while, i came back to the united states for a short vacation. when i got back, we were told immediately on april 4 to get everything you have, loaded up, your suits and all the equipment

and fly out to the uss midway which was sailing south. about 70 miles at sea. we would land on it and that would take us down to the philippines. from there, we would do some additional work. every aircraft in group 36, which was stationed in okinawa, 46's thatn had 14 h all flew out to the midway and landed. we spent 2.5 days doing nothing but eating in the galley and having a great time. it was a great ship. i was very happy to be on the midway and once we got to the philippines, they said, get on your aircraft and fly to the airfield. we did that. the next day, the uss hancock -- here's another picture of the h 46 doing carrier born operations.

853 was the other aircraft we were with, a heavy hauler. okinawa sailing hmm 462.th a we got aboard their in the philippines. we had a complete h 63 squadron. composited with some cobras and hugies. hies. the oddity was, our squadron did not have enough pilots back in those days. we were short and pilots. we brought some guys from five or six earlier. they were flying copilot, which is dangerous. that's the only way we could get every aircraft going onto the ship. the other thing that was odd,

we did not have senior leadership, we had three majors. one came from the maintenance squadron. a wonderful man who had been the maintenance officer at the headquarters of the maintenance squadron. we had a cobra pilot, a junior major, and then we had another major who was also with the cobras. he had been their operations officer. we had a safety officer from the air group. the question was who is going to be in charge and go to meetings and do everything you have to do on board ship? they got together and we decided we would make the junior officer the commanding officer. the way we did that, the reason for that, he had a letter that was very valuable. how many marines or former military do we have tonight? quite a few. you all know what office hours are, nonjudicial punishment. [laughter] he had a letter that allowed him

to do that. for good discipline, we needed to be able to come if we had a trooper that did not do the right in, we had to have the ability to hold him accountable. we made him the commanding officer. the maintenance officer took care of the maintenance issues and worked with the ship the best he could because we did not take a lot of maintenance parts with us. we were supposed to be gone 10, 15 days and come back. we did not think we would need a lot of stuff. by that time, the aircraft were running pretty good. the ops officer from the cobra unit became our operations officer. the senior major became the laundry officer. [laughter] he backed off on some of this stuff. he thought we were doomed to failure and was a downer. we did not want to see him a lot. we lived aboard ship. the other thing at that particular time was the h 46

63 community the h of helicopters were not the best of friends. we respected each other. but in vietnam, back in the day, the 53 cost a lot of money. if they got shot up, they had to answer for it. we did not have a lot of them. we needed that aircraft for the heavy lift. h 46, no big deal. we can always replace it and the crew. the 53, you can imagine how we let them know what we thought. [laughter] they kept us out of a lot of the information that we needed. we sailed south and we loitered off the peninsula. we sat there and sat there and sat there waiting for things to slow down. on april 10, they diverted us to cambodia.

we went over there. the operation order was set. the 53's were going to run that mission completely because the distance from the ship to the was 139 nautical miles. the 46 would have to refuel when we got there in order to get back to the ship. we ran search and rescue off the coast of cambodia. 53 go down engo route or get shot down, we could rescue the crew and rescue the aircraft if we could. once cambodia was done, it was done really efficiently -- where's my numbers here? i think there was 289 americans and nationals that came out and that was it. we did not bring any cambodians out. interesting in the fact they

wanted to stay. they did not believe that they should leave their country. it was theirs and they were going to stay and see what they can do. most of them unfortunately were killed and they did not survive the takeover. we went ahead on the ship, went back around and it was 289 people that came out of that evacuation. we moved back to south vietnam and the ship circled an area. we had two battalions with us. second battalion, fourth marines, and a battalion from the ninth marines. there was a big discussion whether we should have an amphibious landing. whitmire, a wonderful senior officer who was the commander of the seventh fleet, said he would have nothing to do with putting more americans back into vietnam. our mission was to get everybody out. that came to an end real

quick like. we kept sailing around and every day, we would get up around 4:00 in the morning. expecting, today is the day and nothing would happen. we would stay ready to go until 2:00 in the afternoon. we would go back to our bunks and wait and wait until the next day would come along. the same thing over and over. on april 29, they started taking rockets at the air base. the heavy lift air force aircraft could no longer do evacuations of the vietnamese and americans out of that site. they decided at 0700 to stop all fixed wing evacuation and activate the frequent wind operation order and do everything by helicopter. this is the american embassy seen here. every pilot had a picture of it. this is the other thing.

there is the landing zone on top of the embassy for our 46 is. 's. the big aircraft had to land down here. this tree had to be removed. we got it down within about 12 hours. the marines that were on-site , they were ready to go. i can tell you right now, the street out here, and other streets around here was wall-to-wall people. everybody was trying to get in. everybody wanted a right to freedom. it was a mess. the other problem we had was communication. my son, who some of you know corps,rved in the marine used to call me and he read a few books about vietnam. he would say, that's all fiction, isn't it? i say, it depends on what you're reading. he said how did you fly at , night? i said, it was easy. in the moonlit night, it was

easy. we would use our navigation aids to get to where we wanted to go. he said, how did you do that without night vision goggles? [laughter] he was astounded by that. he would say, you went into the medevac, get amand a how did you know where they were? did you have gps? [laughter] i said, we had distance on the attack and radio that would give us summary miles out. we figured we were within a five mile area. we would look for a strobe light on the ground. if it picked up the strobe, that's where we had to be. he marines on the ground to take the strobe and put it in a helmet. as we went around, once we saw it, we knew we were on a flight path to pick up the wounded individual. you did not have to worry about seeing a lot. generally speaking, the marines would try not to put a tree in

your glide path. that would ruin your whole day. [laughter] they wanted to get out as badly as we wanted to get in. it worked out pretty good. to this day, my son has a problem with that. he's always had night vision goggles on his helmet. he's always had gps. we started flying -- oh, the other issue is committee case should. we had no cell phones. we had a uhf radio. the uhf was primary. we would leave the ship and we have the helicopter direction center give us a steer towards vietnam. we would pick up the air force direction center. they would tell us where to go and all this good stuff. we started the operation. we were supposed to start at 12:10. the confusion was, what is l hour? the navy and army have different

definitions for l hour. it was screwed up to begin with. by the time we got there, it was 3:00 in the afternoon. one thing happened that was really unforgivable, a message came in to say, we are going to start this operation right around noon. the guy was going off shift. another guy was coming aboard. this guy took the messages, file them away. the next guy went through stuff. he did not go through the flash message basket until an hour or two later. there was the message that said, the operation starts at 12:10. right now, it is 3:00. you can imagine how we had to scramble. everybody on the ground was ticked off nobody showed up when they were supposed to and that is because we did not get the word correctly. we thought it would go like phnom penh. the 53's started out beautifully. they would go two aircraft at a

time. they went in where they were going to pick up some vietnamese and americans to start bringing them out to the ship. we had 44 naval vessels in about a 10 nautical mile area. it was really packed out there. it was a beautiful sight to see. i don't know if we will ever have that many navy ships in one location again. we had the uss midway, of course. the uss hancock, the uss coral sea, and the oddity about the midway it had 10 air force , helicopters aboard. the air force flew these aircraft down from thailand all the way down and around the peninsula, refueled, and came aboard the navy ship. this had not been done before. it's a terrible time to practice it right when you need everybody working. [laughter] they did a marvelous job. the navy, after about a day,

learned how to work with them. they do have peculiarities. good, some are bad, but we made it happen. everything was going well. they went in and did their part of the mission. my mission that day, we had doctors and everything. i was going to orbit. there was an aircraft that went down and needed extraction. as we sat there, it was time to come back to the ship. we only carry one hour and 40 minutes of fuel. we had to come back and get gasoline. we landed on the hancock, back, it became clear at that point that this line of people needing evacuation was endless. it looked like it would never stop. they were lined up for miles. it was like going to a trump rally. [laughter] it was one of those things where

we said to ourselves, this is crazy. what we started to do, we made a command decision. we will not use the search-and-rescue mode anymore. we will start going into the embassy, picking up people. we went back and forth. you came in, picked up people, refueled, and went back in which is called daisy chaining. you try to keep the two aircraft together the best you could. we always landed on the roof. it was neat the first couple times. the security guard came into the aircraft, he asked me, do you want some pistols? i said, no. i've got one. he said, do you want pistols? he showed me this box full of pistols. everybody getting on aircraft were first and they were taking the weapons off these guys. bag,d, here is my helmet fill it up. he did. everybody came out of that operation with a full bag of

brownings, some of them, very nice. [laughter] that was one of the benefits. we kept flying. the weather was really bad. it started out ok, the ceiling kept coming down. foroperation plan called flying above 3000 feet and if you have ever been in a helicopter, anything above 3000 feet is a little bit nerve-racking. that's a long way to fall if things come apart. we tried to go down early, down to 3000 feet. we stayed there below what the other traffic was. we finally talked to the 53's and said you are wasting a lot , of time climbing up all the way to that altitude. get your people look to 3000 feet. go out over the water. eventually, they did. the other problem was, the air force cricket who was trying to

keep track of everything, the loads of people coming out, who is where, what is going on, their communication wasn't too good. they weren't ready to handle 77 helicopters. it just wasn't possible. a couple of the cobra pilots who were down low, circling around the city, literally took over. they said, we know which landing zones are open. we will guide you in. contact us. they took over. then the operation really took off. we were able to be more efficient. it worked really well at that point. another thing that was operational concern -- my squadron did not get all the 53's got.that the was, howe questions many people are we going to be picking up? no one had a clue. it could go on forever. that was a big problem. the other big issue was, is

anybody going to shoot at us? no one knew. one reason we went to 6500 feet inbound was because we thought, if they are going to use a missile, we could see it coming at us early enough to take defensive measures against it. they were not much. we did not have a lot of antimissile capability. those were issues that would really get to us as we were flying along, especially when it got dark. that was the other are we going one. to fly at night? we had asked to fly at night to train because most of us have not had a night flight for 65 days. especially off of a carrier at night, it's really difficult to see sometimes. you want to be ready. we were not allowed to do that. the ships did not want to operate at night. that was turned down. the weather really got bad. that was starting to force everybody down lower.

the other issue that became a real problem that night, as we came out, was finding fuel. you got 77 aircraft out there, flying out to these ships, and they have to get gas each time they land. we did not have enough refueling points. one of my friends went to a landing ship dock which has two spaces in the back for helicopters. he was ready to flame out and lose his aircraft. he landed right next to the ship in the water and sat there bobbing up and down in the waves until an aircraft would leave so we could jump on the deck and get fuel. there was a cobra that night who literally could not find a place to land. they crashed into the sea. both pilots got out and were rescued by a boat. refueling was a big issue. the embassy here was going to be

a secondary point of departure for evacuation. it was supposed to be americans only. we figured there might be about 200 americans coming out of there. it turned out there were 2000 vietnamese there. not just americans, they were all mixed in. the ambassador was an interesting fellow, ambassador graham. i don't know what he was thinking or what he intended. i know he was conflicted. he had lost his son in vietnam who was killed a couple years earlier, i think he had a real passion for vietnam, and all these vietnamese had worked for him and the united states. he felt he had to take care of these folks. they were his responsibility. he figured rightly that if they get captured by the north vietnamese, they would be killed or sent off to education camps. he just kept delaying his departure. 65 went in with hmm

twice to get the ambassador. the ambassador refused to go up to the top deck to get into the aircraft. jerry got back to the command ship, the admiral was out there to greet the ambassador. all these vietnamese get off. the admiral asked jerry, where's the ambassador? he's refusing to leave. he literally would not come out of the embassy. he was really upset when the rockets hit and we had to switch to helicopters. he drove all the way out there, had a staff car driving all the way out there, to make sure that he was being told the truth. finally, at 4:58 in the morning, 09 was flying with

jerry barry and he flew 18 straight hours. he came in and landed. ambassador, you better get on board now. this is the last aircraft. he will get a couple more for the rest of your security detail. that's it. finally, the ambassador took the flag and everything you needed. he departed. the problem we ran into, no one knew this, is that when he got back to the command ship, he first called the tigers out. that was the call sign for the ambassador. when he landed on the blue ridge he said, tiger is out. we are done. everybody took that as a signal that the operation was complete. at this point, people had already started shutting down because of exhaustion. most of us had been up since 3:00 or 4:00 the previous morning and some longer than that. the air force guys had already shut down. they have a very strict aircrew requirement.

they were all tied up and done. i had come back a little after 10:00 that night. my wingman and i had landed and as we were refueling on the hancock we looked off to our right and saw a flash. that's when the aircraft flew into the water. we knew there was an accident. we had one problem. i could not get -- everybody that was refueling us had stopped to watch what was going on. i could not get the crew chief and refueling crew to break the hose loose. my wingman got his loose. he flew over -- it could not have been more than 60 or 70 yards from the ship -- and he was able to see the two crewmen because they managed to get there pin flares out. they were shooting the pin flares at the helicopters. he was able to land in the water and drop his cargo door and drag the man with broken legs and

damage to their bodies. they came in and we saved those two. when they got back on, it became apparent that aircrews were getting really exhausted. they finally shut us down and told us to get out of the aircraft. they told me and my wingman to go down into the ready room. we went downstairs. the aircraft -- the 46, the cocoon and up like a they put them away like that. we went down into the ready room and they said there was a rumor that there were americans 60 miles south of saigon. i said, more than a rumor. what facts do we have about that? they did not know. they literally did not know. we started breaking out the maps and they wanted us to search for these people. i said, that's insane.

down in that area, there was no electricity. it was a small village. i said,. i'm not going to be out there just searching around. we spent two hours looking at that. we spent a lot of time doing the accident investigation. we knew that was going to be a problem. just one more slide here i wanted to show. this is what it looked like at night when we took off with the weather. that's the 46. this is what the ropes look like at night that we had to land on. pretty small target to hit. especially in that kind of weather. kept us alive, kept us thinking all the time. we got back in to the ship. my copilot was steve cook, a wonderful man. i can't remember the gunner's name. we were sitting on the flight

deck and it was around 6:00 in the morning. most of the guys were smarter than me. most of them are always smarter than me. they went to bed. they said, screw this. they went to bed. we were walking around the flight deck, back and forth. a guy comes running up, we have a problem. we have 11 marines on the roof at the embassy. i looked at him, sure you do. this can't happen. they said, you have to get that aircraft. there was one aircraft on the flight deck. they said, go get it and go. hughes, chief, stan said is it ready to go? he got it buttoned up and everything. we got in there and away we went. we were numb, literally. we were so tired. we started going inbound. the like this aircraft,

problem was, along the coast, you get squall lines. you get thunderstorms that pop up and they go about 15,000 feet or higher. we thought, how are we going to get through their? there? we knew that the line might be a mile wide. we were trying to think about what they told us about penetrating thunderstorms. we made a point that we were going to go through it which we hail was so bad -- the 46 had a windshield wiper which i always thought was a nuisance -- but the hail was so bad, it blew them off the aircraft. i don't know where they ended up. we broke down. so much fuel, i knew it would be a problem. we went straight ahead, of the up the saigon river.

we stayed at right about 5000 feet, we saw the rooftop, we landed and picked up the 11 marines. then some thing else interesting happened. there are several books written about this. most of the books embellish a bunch of stuff. i was called one time and asked questions. they were asking me, they say you picked them up and landed again. your crew chief says that was because you had to get your gas mask on because the marines had popped their gas containers to hold off the vietnamese getting to the roof. i said, that doesn't sound right. i never checked out a gas mask. i didn't think about it very much and i let it go. i told one fellow here, there's a great video out by the american experience pbs. it is called "the last days" and i am watching it and son of a gun. when we landed we picked up the 11 guys, but the last guy getting on the aircraft over the

ramp in the back fell out. when we got up about five or six feet off of the ground, the leader of the team yelled at the crew chief to yell back at me, don't set it down. we eventually did set it down and the guy crawled back on the aircraft. we had all 11 on board. that answered the question that had been burning in my mind for years. the other thing in my mind, a lot of you probably see it at the exhibit here. it shows a healy sitting on a small rooftop. a whole line of people coming up to it, getting on it. that's an iconic picture. that is a cia healy. that's on top of a apartment building. he's taking his family and wife's family out of the country with him. that's what that's about. some other air america people landed there to get other people out of the apartment house. that was usually several days before the final evacuation.

and we we lifted off headed down the saigon river. that day was a beautiful, sunny day. everybody was along the river banks, waving like this to us. we put our hands out and we waved back at them. i got to thinking, this is a surreal, this cannot be happening. when we landed, the embassy was surrounded by t 72 tanks. it was surrounded by aaa anti-air force guns. they tracked us in and out. i told the gunner, don't think about shooting at them. we don't want to make them mad. i knew there was something strange going on about the rules of engagement. we flew back to the ship. we got to the uss okinowa. we left the rooftop at 7:53 in the morning and got back to 8:20, refueled,

and i'm hr went to bed this time. [laughter] said, everybody, get out of here and hide someplace. we did. that night, 1054 hours were flown by the aircrews. 682 in and out. the evacuation of the compound, they took out 395 americans, 4475 vietnamese. 978 americans came out of the embassy. another 1120 vietnamese. there was a total of 1300 plus americans evacuated on that mission. 5595 vietnamese.

and third country nationals. ending up in the united states was over 138,000 vietnamese from the evacuation by sea air, and , across the border into thailand. the sad part is, we lost our search and rescue aircraft. i wish that could have been different. the irony was, there were some people that knew we were short on pilots. his wife and kids had just showed up in okinawa and we told him to stay behind, but he came. night we say, what mission do we get this guy? we had no idea what the outcome of the operation would be. we said, search and rescue would be the best place. it turned out, it wasn't. today, i look at some of the

stuff and i think -- let's see what we've got here. i've got one more here. this was a hangar deck of the hancock. let me tell you a good story. i don't know how many hundreds of people are there. this became a real issue. we were going to be at sea for 4 days on her way back to the philippines and you have to feed them. career, i was sitting down and talking to the admiral and i asked him what's , the most important thing you thought about? people shooting at us? do we have enough military aircraft? he said, no. i was worried about water cuts and food. i looked at him and said, what you mean? he said, these people have to eat the same diet they have been eating. i can't afford to give them stake and ice cream and everything we eat. i need all the rice that i can get.

he had people -- every ship had coca-cola machines. cut those in half to use for a cup. when you came on board the ship, you were frisked, you were given and we had the galley give them rice and other items that were familiar with the area. that was one of his biggest concerns. one of the other great concerns was, what do you do with them for five days? the engineers, naval engineers on the ship have my greatest respect. one of the problems is, you have to have a way to relieve yourself. they went out on the hangers and they built these miraculous latrines for men and women.

it was quite an invention. they were able to solve that problem. then again, you had boredom. eagle, one of my favorites, came up to me and said, i have got an idea. mane was known as the tuba and ray kroc owned the san diego padres. at the first game of the season, tuba man always had to be there. he played the tuba. his tuba was a bright green camouflage in some places and he went and got the tuba and he would literally walk up and down the aisle here in these little kids would jump in behind him like a snake following him. he did that for about an hour one day and he was going to quit. he was getting tired.

the captain of the ship came down and said, that is really great. thank you. he said, i am going to quit. he says, no you're not. [laughter] you will be here for the next six hours. [laughter] by the time we got to the bay in the philippines, his lips -- the kids gathered around him. they loved him. he saved the day. that was quite a mess. swift 22, where are you today? i just saw this in a magazine a month ago. this was the famous aircraft that i flew in and out with. it's in a cocoon. i'm glad to tell you that relocateds soon to be to the castle air museum in california. they are going to repair it and put it back into original colors

and everything. it will be a museum piece. that's where it is today. that's how it looks. that's how i feel some days when i get up. [laughter] oh yeah, one last epitaph. when we came back, they kicked us off of the hancock. they were glad to see helicopters go because it is a real insult to have a fixed wing carrier with helicopters. how low can you go? [laughter] they were so happy to see us leave. we left and we landed at qb point, beautiful air station in the philippines. we needed to get back to okinawa. i have 14 aircraft crews, angles, whatrent ship is heading back that way so we can get home? we were sailing back to the island on the uss okinowa. we have got the aircraft

spotted, i am in the lead aircraft, the rotors are turning, everything is good, i can see on the horizon the silhouette of the island coming up. time, as some of you know, i had a girlfriend and was eager to get back. all of a sudden, as i'm sitting there, the ship does one of these hard 90 degree turns and another 90 degrees turn and i'm yelling to the crew chief, take the chains off. we have to get off the ship. we immediately got the shutdown signal. a thing happened were a bunch of people had taken a u.s. freighter -- that is a whole other story -- but we could not get back to okinawa. we were forced to hang out at the pool at qb point for 30 days. [laughter] was $.25 and a san

miguel hot dog was another $.25. i can't begin to tell you how many hotdogs and beers i had for those 30 days. nobody drowned while i was there. [laughter] that was the good news. that's my story. i hope you enjoyed it. if there are any questions, i would be glad to answer them. [applause] reminder, you are going to get two rounds of applause tonight. you are welcome to come to either side of the stage. i will come to you if you are unable. >> this is my real hair, by the way. [laughter] good. >> from the audience. >> what was your fuel situation? when you left the embassy, going back to the carrier, what was your fuel situation? >> desperately low. if you look at the last days

video from american experience, they had some pictures of the last 11 guys in the back of the aircraft. great picture. i don't know how they got it. guys andre was of the you could see in the cockpit the two warning lights. come on at lights roughly 400 pounds of fuel. the question we had -- the sad part is, i love the navy, maybe. [laughter] you can't get them to turn a ship around sometimes. we called them and said, we are short on fuel. you better turnaround if you don't want us to go in the water. the good thing it was daylight. we landed with about 100 pounds aside. we just barely made it back to the ship. one andwas the closest that is why we went there first. fuel was a big problem. it was a problem during the evening when we flew. i could tell you, one other good

little side story, as we were coming back, i got up when morning, i had the early morning flight. there was a whole bunch of ships, we have a hancock, the midway, the other stuff. i take off-line and i see something strange right in the middle of this fleet. there is a cruise ship. i don't know how it got there, but everybody was waving and looking. they could not have been more than 100 yards away from a midway which is a great site to see. if you go to san diego, it is a wonderful museum. these people are right in the middle and i'm thinking how did they get there? you cannot penetrate that. they had to do it at night somehow. it was odd. when i went back after that flight, they were gone. i don't know how they did it. any other questions? >> the marines that had been left behind at the embassy and

you went back and got, was that because people had stopped because they knew the tiger was back? did you learn more about how something like that could happen? >> good question. i tried to read everything i could get my hands on. basically, the whole operation was stopped when they said the tiger is out. there were still a few aircraft flying that made a few last trips before those marines went into the embassy, locked the doors, went up the stairs to the roof and they were up there twot an hour and a half to hours. i think they were getting nervous. they were calling out to the ships. all we had was radio. wasship's route to sea about 60 miles. getting contact was a most

almost impossible. what happened, i really can't verify this, is that their unit did a headcount. the question started going around, where are these guys? someone said, the last time we saw them was at the embassy. they could not find anybody that could verify that they had come out. that's how we ascertained that that's where they were. >> you are welcome to ask a follow-up. kept -- do you know who those marines were? have you kept or found any of them? >> no. i know who they are. i was told one of them lives here in payola. it did not turn out like that. i've never been able to make contact with them. i've contacted my crew chief and the gunner. i have not been able to contact the copilot, but yeah. it would be interesting to talk to them because i am sure they can add more to what i cannot remember. andourse, they are my age probably also cannot remember. [laughter] >> next question is from the

audience, toward the back. >> i am sure most of us, or all of us, have seen the film that shows people pushing helicopters off of an aircraft carrier. what's the deal with that? -- whenthe evacuation things were getting dicey, the south vietnamese decided they better get out. the south vietnamese military they had some other private planes and everybody knew we were out there in the water. they were coming out in small boats, hundreds of boats. they came out to the ships. we had some space. we landed some of them. growing, the numbers were growing, we could not keep them all. some of them were fairly decent. the navy had a crew that would

go up with a saw and cut the rotor blades off. we would take the carcass of the aircraft down into the hangar deck. heelys that the cia had, we saved a lot of those. it turned out to be worthless. they were made by kawasaki industries in japan. the metal that they used to make it with could not get an airworthiness certificate in the united states. it was a coproduced aircraft. you will see a lot of pictures where people landed, got out, and they took the aircraft and shoved them off the side of the ship. i think one story i was told , bill istoll spent wouldys -- the chinook hover off the side of the ship and the pilot would then blow his door off the side of the aircraft. he would stand there and take

the aircraft this way. he would step this way. it would go into the ocean. the problem we had was a lot of the vietnamese did not swim. the other problem we had is that we didn't have navy seals that could do water rescue. we have the equipment, but we did not have people that could enter the water. if the helicopter ever comes over the top of you, the rotor wash coming down on you literally pushes you underwater. they said that bill probably wo or threebe t people that afternoon. it was weighing heavy on him. that's what happened. we cannot bring them all back. there are some interesting stories. what kind of souvenir did you bring back from the war? a friend of mine said, i brought a helicopter back.

[laughter] he literally did. the captain of one ship, they were pulling these barges so they could land these aircraft on the barges and when the rescue was completed the captain told bill and another guy, sink it. the navy boss said, can you fly that chinook? certainly. can you fly that healy? certainly. they went out there on the barge and did what they were told. it was prepared to sing. they flew the aircraft over to the ship. the captain thought that those things were left behind in the water. the problem was, the captain saw those and got really irate and told them to get the aircraft off of his ship. they did and they went into qb point rea. qb point wasn't going to let

them land. they were not u.s. aircraft. they had a real problem and dilemma. they finally landed and the they finally landed and the military police arrested them. they took both aircraft away. it was big enough, we made an office out of it for a while. to get it back to the states, it was too expensive for him to put it on a ship and bring it back. that's true. we got rid of a lot of aircraft. >> this will be our last question. curious, the parallel picture of the side view of the 46 with the foothills in the background, is that laguna coming in and out? >> that's the philippines. >> ok. >> beautiful country to flyover. i don't know if we have any world war ii guests here tonight.

leyte gulf was one of the most pristine places i've ever seen from the air. you can see 50 feet straight down into the water. it's just gorgeous. it was beautiful. >> this wraps up our program. colonel holden will be available in the lobby if you have additional questions. thank you for joining us. another round of applause. [applause] >> thank you.

>> this is american history tv on c-span3, each weekend we feature 48 hours of programs exploring our nation's past. >> in 1968, following the assassination of martin luther king jr. and subsequent riot s that devastated parts of washington, d.c., the office of economic opportunity, which administered war on poverty programs, created a pilot district project as a model to help improve poor relations between the police and the community. according to the national archives, the office of economic opportunity commissioned a series of documentary and training films to record the implementation of the pilot district project, hoping they could be shown and use a